1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method of injecting a liquid into a liquid container that is attached to and detached from a liquid consuming device and that supplies the liquid contained in the liquid containing chamber to the liquid consuming device, and the liquid container manufactured by filling it with the liquid re-filling.
2. Related Art
Examples of the liquid container and the liquid consuming device include an ink cartridge storing an ink liquid and an ink jet printing apparatus to which the displaceable ink cartridge is mounted.
The ink cartridge that can be attached to and detached from a cartridge mount portion of the ink jet printing apparatus normally includes an ink containing chamber for filling with ink (liquid), an ink supply hole for supplying the liquid stored in the ink containing chamber to the ink jet printing apparatus, an ink guide passage for allowing the ink containing chamber to communicate with the ink supply hole, and an air communicating passage for introducing air into the ink containing chamber from the outside with a consumption of the ink stored in the ink containing chamber. When the ink cartridge is mounted on the cartridge mount portion of a printing apparatus, an ink supply needle equipped in the cartridge mount portion is inserted though the ink supply hole to supply the stored ink to a print head of the ink jet printing apparatus.
The print head of the ink jet printing apparatus controls an ejecting operation of ink drops using heat or vibration. By the way, if the print head performs the ejecting operation of the ink in a state where the ink of the ink cartridge is exhausted and not supplied, an idle printing occurs and thus the print head is damaged. In order to prevent the idle printing from occurring in the ink jet printer, it is necessary to monitor an amount of the ink liquid remaining in the ink cartridge.
Accordingly, in order to prevent the idle printing from occurring when the ink stored in a carriage is completely exhausted, there is suggested an ink cartridge that is equipped with a liquid residual quantity sensor for generating a predetermined electrical signal when the amount of the ink remaining in the ink containing chamber is consumed to a threshold set in advance (for example, see Patent Document 1).
Patent Document 1: JP-A-2001-146030
An ink cartridge is a container that is constituted by various constituents with a high precision. For this reason, when ink is exhausted, a disposal of the ink cartridge results in a waste of useful resources and a considerable economic loss.
Accordingly, it is required that the used ink cartridge be recovered by re-filling the ink thereinto.
However, in the known ink cartridge, since the ink-filling step is performed in the course of manufacturing the ink cartridge, there are many cases where the same ink-filling step cannot be performed after finishing the manufacture of the ink cartridge.
Accordingly, it is necessary to develop a recovery method of realizing the ink re-filling, instead of the ink-filling method used when a new ink cartridge is manufactured.
A recent ink cartridge becomes high performance in that a differential pressure valve that is provided to an ink guide passage for allowing the ink containing chamber to communicate with an ink supple hole to adjust an ink pressure that allows the ink to be supplied to the ink supply hole and that also serves as a check valve for preventing the ink from flowing backward from an ink supply hole is provided, or a liquid residual quantity sensor that is used for detecting an amount of the residual ink are equipped in the ink cartridge. Moreover, a configuration of the ink containing chamber or an air communicating passage becomes complex to maintain a good quality of the stored ink for a long time.
For this reason, if the step of injecting the ink into the ink cartridge is carelessly arranged, the ink may leak into portions other than the ink containing chamber or an original function may be damaged due to bubbles mixed at the time of re-filling the ink. Therefore, a poor recovery may be caused.
In addition, if a recovery cost is more expensive than a manufacturing cost of a new ink cartridge due to a processing complexity or a considerable processing cost in injecting the ink into the ink cartridge, there is no sense in recovering the ink cartridge.